S&C Electric Company recently unveiled one of North America’s most advanced microgrids at Oncor’s System Operating Services Facility near Lancaster, Texas. The electric transmission and distribution company has been kind enough to allow us to host tours of this premier facility, which also is home to Oncor’s Technology Demonstration and Education Center that S&C designed [...]

Energy storage is proving its value by making the grid more reliable and efficient. The market is growing, driven by demand from utilities, municipalities, and commercial facilities seeking increased reliability and low-carbon operations. Grid-scale and commercial applications such as frequency regulation, grid hardening, and demand response underscore energy storage’s long-term significance. What is now being [...]

With 2014 now behind us, recent energy trends portend a future where utilities must react to stay in stride with changing market demands. These pressures, however, will not affect all utilities similarly, and certainly not all at once. Indeed, as distributed power generation grows, the subsequent disruption to the electrical grid will lead to a [...]

Energy storage is changing the world. I use the word “changing,” as opposed to “will change,” for a reason, as there are more than 750 megawatt hours of operational, grid-scale battery energy storage installed around the world. Despite what some contend, energy storage is beyond the theoretical and test projects. At S&C Electric Company, we’ve [...]

Utilities have always strived to balance electricity production with demand using traditional generation. Primary sources are coal and nuclear power plants along with natural gas turbines, including the inefficient and costly “peaker” plants that are used only during periods of unusually high demand, typically a few dozen hours per year. To help make the grid [...]

Solar has become an essential source of new electricity generation in the U.S. During the first half of 2014, solar comprised more than 50% of all new electricity generation capacity, according to reports by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research. That number will continue to climb, fueled largely by growth spanning solar-progressive [...]